ASX-listed Vection Technologies has announced plans to acquire local architectural visualisation company Blank Canvas studios.
ASX-listed Vection Technologies has announced plans to acquire local architectural visualisation company Blank Canvas studios.
Vection Technologies is a multinational real-time software company and plans to extend its 3D, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) capabilities in architecture, engineering, construction and real estate offerings through the acquisition.
Blank Canvas Studios was founded in 2017 and specialises in architectural visualisation through 3D imagery and 3D animation, with studios in Perth and Sydney.
The company’s portfolio of work includes projects with both residential and commercial developers including Mirvac, Blackburne, Finbar, Mustera Property Group, Megara, Vicinity Centres, AMP Capital, Development Victoria and Dexus Wholesale Property Fund.
Vection Technologies managing director Gianmarco Biagi said the acquisition was part of the group’s global verticalization strategy – seeking to build, acquire or partner with aligned companies.
The company outlined how acquiring Blank Canvas would boost its offerings: through the ability to provide vertical-specific 3D rendering and visualisation services, and to deliver Vection’s cloud 3D, VR and AR applications directly to the Australasian real estate and architectural industries.
“By leveraging our global infrastructure and market positioning, we believe that Blank Canvas can greatly improve its operating performance and margins with an expanded product breadth and scale, while representing the first foundational step in our Australasian growth plan,” Mr Biagi said.
Under the acquisition deal, Vection will issue $250,000 worth of fully paid ordinary shares of the company at the 20-day volume-weighted average price.
“Entire industries are experiencing the transformational power of real-time 3D technologies, resulting in their complete re-imagination,” Mr Biagi said.
“In this context, Blank Canvas will enable Vection Technologies to deliver seamless, AEC and Real Estate industry - specific real-time 3D solutions, expanding our market penetration and network throughout Australia and globally.”
Virtual reality architectural visualisation (otherwise known as ArchViz) has taken off in recent years, largely due to its ability to effectively bridge the gap between the vision and reality for home buyers.
The technology has been particularly popular with off-the-plan developers in their marketing mix, considering about 64 per cent of buyers are concerned with quality when it comes to purchasing an apartment, according to realestate.com.au’s 2020 Developer Insights Series research.
COVID-19 has also driven interest in the architectural visualisation space, accelerating the use of 3D imagery, virtual reality and augmented reality, with the Developer Insights Series revealing that 49 per cent of buyers purchased an apartment last year without visiting a physical display suite (up from 27 per cent the year prior).
Mr Clayton said leveraging Vection’s AR and VR capabilities enabled the company to remain at the forefront of the industry.
“For residential and commercial developers, it means that, beyond photorealistic 3D imagery and animation, we’ll expand to web-based AR and VR customer experiences that are truly immersive, to support our clients’ marketing and sales strategies.
“So our ability to add both creative and commercial value to every project has now been greatly enhanced, which is really exciting.”
“We are thrilled to join Vection Technologies during this really important time in the evolution of architectural visualisation.”
At the time of writing Vection Technologies was trading up by one per cent at $0.091 per share.
